Series Re-read #3 The Encounter

[buffyangellvr23]

When Tobias, Jake, Rachel, Marco and Cassie were given the ability to morph, they were also given one very important warning: Never stay in a morph for more than two hours. It seemed a small price to pay, since the kids know that humans everywhere are being forced to let slimy, spineless creatures creep into their brains. And the only way the kids

Comments

[tygerwulfe]

Back to my very favorite book. :) Always a joy to reread this.

Tobias' struggles with and eventual integration with his hawk side are very important to the series. How do you think the series would've gone if he'd kept living in Jake's attic?

[dgcatanisiri]

I suggested this elsewhere when the topic of homosexuality in Animorphs came up elsewhere - I think that there might have originally been plans for Tobias to be gay and have at the least an unrequited crush on Jake, which is why he was originally living at Jake's house and not one of the others - I mean if he wanted a place to stay that still tied to his human life, surely he could live up in Cassie's rafters or something, right? But someone higher up got panicky at the thought of a main character in a kids book series being gay and ordered him straightened out. I admit, I have slash goggles welded on, but Tobias is portrayed with a lot of sympathy for any outsider, and the few mentions of homosexuality in the books were from Tobias specifically.

Don't get me wrong, I love Tobias/Rachel, but my favorite of the slash pairings in Animorphs is without a doubt Jake/Tobias.

[animorphfanatic]

Well, even if Tobias were homosexual, Jake wasn't. So it's just be a daydream.

I think that makes a lot of sense though; whenever homosexuality is brought up it always seems to be in a Tobias book. I never thought of that.

[odette_river]

Interesting. I'd never even considered this before, but I guess I can sort of see that dynamic. I wonder how that would have affected the rest of the series, if it had been played out...

[anijen21]

there was definitely some hero worship there, but I'd never considered that.

and to be totally frank, I know a lot of people love the pairing, but I never really "got" Rachel/Tobias. She brought out the threads of courage in him, and he brought out the threads of sensitivity in her or w/e, but when they were together, it always felt like we were watching two entirely different people who just happened to bear the names Rachel and Tobias.

Upon this reread, Rachel/Marco is a lot more believable to me, but I'm really not good at all of this slash/OTP stuff so idk.

[anijen21]

um...I don't have much to say about this book, but I'll say what I do

[karma_fucked]

You think she just didn't realize how ubiquitous their bird-of-prey morphs were going to be and messed up? Because it ended up that their raptor morphs kind of mirrored their personalities, in a way. Sort of. Never mind.

Oh! Please elaborate!

And I agree, I feel this book was blah. I didn't like it, even though everyone seems to be a big fan. It doesn't grab me the way other Tobias books do. I guess it's just that things haven't been established yet...

[anijen21]

idk, I mean bald eagle totally suits Rachel, just a huge, proud bird that stands for bravery and a sort of patriotism, you know? Red-tail hawk suits Tobias because they kind of blend in, they're kind of like the average bird-of-prey...I kind of lose it with Jake's peregrine, because I really don't know if he's a "small and fast" kind of guy. I might have made Marco the peregrine. And then honestly I don't even know what traits ospreys and Northern Harriers have. Ospreys hunt in water...yeah that's kind of where it falls apart lol

[anijen21]

also Ax has a harrier because he is hairier than the other Animorphs?

IDK IT IS SORT OF A STRETCH

[acts_of_tekla]

Am I the only one who thinks this should've come up a time or two later? The Yeerks had to keep getting water from places.

Even if you assume that the Pool Ship was in geosynchronous orbit and that it was easiest to get supplies from the area in which the Yeerks already had a foothold, air and water aren't exactly hard to find. Even a couple of hundred miles away would have been out of the Animorphs reach, and it was sheer dumb luck that they saw the first ship.

Or maybe the Yeerks just finished repairing their air/water recycling system ;P (Yeah, yeah, I know -- the water would be needed to replace the water in the Pool, if nothing else, and in any case recycling air/water doesn't work forever. I think it's actually pretty cool that KAA recognized that they'd still need some kind of supplies. The Truck Ship probably qualifies for some kind of averted trope -- the Perpetual Spaceship, or something.)